The author Bruce Dudley Ryder was a second-cousin of the present Queen of England – his father Peter Hugh Dudley Ryder (1913-1993; see Who Was Who) having married the Queen's cousin Sarah Susannah Bowes-Lyon – and a great-grandson of the Earl of Harrowby. Ryder had family experience in the fields of business and transport, his father having been for many years head of the transport conglomerate Thomas Tilling Ltd.